History
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Inverness at the end of the 17th century
Picts[edit]
Inverness was one of the chief strongholds of the Picts. In AD 569, it was visited by St Columba with the intention of converting the Pictish king Brude, who is supposed to have resided in the vitrified fort on Craig Phadrig, on the western edge of the city. A church or a monk's cell is thought to have been established by early Celtic monks on St Michael's Mount, a mound close to the river, now the site of the Old High Church and graveyard.
Medieval[edit]
The first royal charter was granted by Dabíd mac Maíl Choluim (King David I) in the 12th century. The Gaelic king Mac Bethad Mac Findláich (MacBeth) whose 11th-century killing of King Duncan was immortalised in Shakespeare's largely fictionalised play Macbeth, held a castle within the city where he ruled as Mormaer of Moray and Ross.
Inverness Castle is said to have been built by Máel Coluim III (Malcolm III) of Scotland, after he had razed to the ground the castle in which Mac Bethad mac Findláich had, according to much later tradition, murdered Máel Coluim's father Donnchad (Duncan I), and which stood on a hill around 1 km to the north-east.
The strategic location of Inverness has led to many conflicts in the area. Reputedly there was a battle in the early 11th century between Malcolm III and Thorfinn the Mighty at Blar Nam Feinne, to the southwest of the city.
Inverness had four traditional fairs, including Legavrik or "Leth-Gheamhradh", meaning midwinter, and Faoilleach. William the Lion (d. 1214) granted Inverness four charters, by one of which it was created a royal burgh. Of the Dominican friary founded by Alexander III in 1233, only one pillar and a worn knight's effigy survive in a secluded graveyard near the city centre.
Engraving of Inverness from A Tour in Scotland by Thomas Pennant, 1771
Medieval Inverness suffered regular raids from the Hebrides, particularly by the MacDonald Lords of the Isles in the 15th century. In 1187, one Dòmhnall Bàn (Donald Ban) led islanders in a battle at Torvean against men from Inverness Castle led by the governor's son, Donnchadh Mac an Tòisich (Duncan Mackintosh). Both leaders were killed in the battle, and Dòmhnall Bàn is said to have been buried in a large cairn near the river, close to where the silver chain was found. Local tradition says that the citizens fought off the Clan Donald in 1340 at the Battle of Blairnacoi on Drumderfit Hill, north of Inverness across the Beauly Firth. In the late 14th-early 15 century, Inverness was a symbol of the Duke of Albany's power. On his way to the Battle of Harlaw in 1411, Donald of Islay took the town and burned the bridge over the River Ness. Sixteen years later, James I held a parliament in the castle to which the northern chieftains were summoned, of whom three were arrested for defying the king's command. Clan Munro defeated Clan Mackintosh in 1454 at the Battle of Clachnaharry just west of the city. Clan Donald and their allies stormed the castle during the Raid on Ross in 1491.
Post-medieval[edit]
In 1562, during the progress undertaken to suppress Huntly's insurrection, Mary, Queen of Scots, was denied admittance into Inverness Castle by the governor, who belonged to the earl's faction, and whom she afterwards caused to be hanged. The Clan Munro and Clan Fraser of Lovat took the castle for her. The house in which she lived meanwhile stood in Bridge Street until the 1970s, when it was demolished to make way for the second Bridge Street development.
Beyond the then northern limits of the town, Oliver Cromwell built a citadel capable of accommodating 1,000 men, but with the exception of a portion of the ramparts it was demolished at the Restoration. A clock tower today called Cromwell's Tower is located in the Citadel area of Inverness but was actually part of a former hemp cloth factory built c. 1765.
Inverness played a role in the Jacobite rising of 1689. In early May, it was besieged by a contingent of Jacobites led by MacDonell of Keppoch. The town was rescued by Viscount Dundee, the overall Jacobite commander, when he arrived with the main Jacobite army, although he required Inverness to profess loyalty to King James VII.
18th century[edit]
In 1715, the Jacobites occupied the royal fortress as a barracks. In 1727, the government built the first Fort George here but, in 1746, it surrendered to the Jacobites and they blew it up. Culloden Moor lies nearby and was the site of the Battle of Culloden in 1746, which ended the Jacobite rising of 1745–46.
In 1783, the year that saw the end of the American Revolution and the beginning of the Highland Clearances in Inverness-shire, Coinneach MacChoinnich (1758–1837), a poet from Clan MacKenzie who was born at Castle Heather, then known as Castle Leather (Caisteal Leothair), composed the Gaelic poem The Lament of the North. In the poem, MacChionnich mocks the Highland gentry for becoming absentee landlords, evicting their tenants en masse in favour of sheep, and of "spending their wealth uselessly", in London. He accuses King George III both of tyranny and of steering the ship of state into shipwreck. MacChionnich also argues that truth is on the side of George Washington and the Continental Army and that the Scottish Gaels would do well to emigrate to the New World before the King and the landlords take every farthing they have left.
Industrial Revolution, the World Wars and end of the millennium[edit]
In 1855, the railways first came to Inverness with the Inverness and Nairn Railway, which ended up getting absorbed into the Inverness and Aberdeen Junction Railway by 1861. The Loch Gorm railway works was built soon after the line, in 1857, which built locomotives for the Highland Railway which formed in 1865, when the I&AJR and the I&PJR (Inverness and Perth Junction Railway) merged, connecting rural towns in the North and East, such as Wick, Thurso and Kyle of Lochalsh to the rest of the network across the United Kingdom. The Far North Line would become crucial come the start of World War One, as coal trains took priority to provide fuel to the Royal Navy's Home Fleet at Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands. The Loch Gorm works had become redundant prior to WWI and was delegated to a maintenance facility, a duty which it provides to this day.
During World War One, the U.S. Navy opened a naval base US Naval Base 18 at the Muirtown Basin on the Caledonian Canal. It was a final stage in constructing anti-submarine mines for the North Sea Mine Barrage, a 230 mile long and 25 mile wide minefield between Orkney and Norway, with USNB 18 contributing at least 70,000 mines. This base was also connected to the rail network with large sidings temporarily laid over a field behind the nearby Merkinch Primary School.[citation needed] This yard was marshalled by a LB&SCR A1 class 'Terrier' No.38 "Millwall", loaned by the Admiralty, and sold on to the Glen Albyn distillery following the conflict's end. The canal was also used heavily by fishing vessels as a shortcut from East to West in order to dodge the Imperial German Navy U-boats patrolling the North Coast.
The Rose Street drill hall was completed in around 1908. On 7 September 1921, the first UK Cabinet meeting to be held outside London took place in the Inverness Town House, when David Lloyd George, on holiday in Gairloch, called an emergency meeting to discuss the situation in Ireland. The Inverness Formula composed at this meeting was the basis of the Anglo-Irish Treaty.
Prior to World War Two, air travel came to Inverness, in the form of the Longman Aerodrome in 1933, becoming the hub for Highland Airways, providing connections to Orkney and Wick, however this didn't last long as Highland Airways was absorbed into Scottish Airways in 1938, with the Aerodrome being requisitioned by the Royal Air Force after the declaration of war on Germany the following year, forming RAF Inverness. Following the war, the airport returned to civilian use, before shutting down in 1947 over safety concerns due to its size; it moved to the former RAF Dalcross, where it remains to day, with the former airfield quickly being swallowed up under an industrial estate.
Again, Inverness played its part in a global conflict as the Home Fleet returned to Scapa Flow, and coal trains took priority going North. In January 1943, the Luftwaffe charted the area however, incorrectly identified the Air Force Base as a seaplane base, saving Inverness from any Luftwaffe air raids, becoming one of only a few towns in Scotland to survive the war undamaged. The closest Luftwaffe bombs fell was at the British Aluminium Works at Foyers, approximately 11 miles south-south-east along Loch Ness. This resulted in the deaths of 52 year old fitter, Archibald MacDonald, directly and causing 69 year old furnaceman, Murdo MacLeod, a fatal heart attack, becoming the only civilian fatalities to enemy action within the Inverness area.
Following VE Day, Inverness's industry went into decline. The Caledonian Canal was long obsolete, and the danger to fishing vessels around the North Coast by enemy hands was no longer there. With the rise of road transport, the Beeching Cuts rolled back a lot of Inverness's railway infrastructure, with the roundhouse being demolished in 1962,[citation needed] and the Far North and the Kyle of Lochalsh only avoided closure by to fierce resistance by residents.
In September 1952, Inverness regained national attention, in tragic circumstances as World Land Speed record holder, John Cobb, was killed in an attempt at the World Water Speed record on Loch Ness, after his craft Crusader, powered by a de Havilland Ghost jet engine, crashed and disintegrated while travelling at over 200 mph.
21st century[edit]
Inverness has experienced rapid economic growth in the 21st century; between 1998 and 2008, the city and the rest of the central Highlands showed the largest growth of average economic productivity per person in Scotland and the second-greatest growth in the United Kingdom as a whole, with an increase of 86%. It was awarded the Nicholson Trophy (class 2 category) for the best town with between 20,000 and 50,000 inhabitants at Britain in Bloom contest in 1975. In 2014, a survey by a property website described Inverness as the happiest place in Scotland and the second happiest in the UK. It was again found to be the happiest place in Scotland by a study conducted in 2015.
Earl of Inverness was a royal title held by Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from 1986. Following public and media pressure, he relinquished the title on 17 October 2025, along with several others.
